


Still Good

by Rina_san28



Series: Remade [15]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Family Fluff, Forgiveness, Gen, Post-Canon, just some good wholesome fun in the snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 21:49:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19118362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rina_san28/pseuds/Rina_san28
Summary: Revali, archer extraordinaire, leads an expedition into the snow.Except his charges are a toddler and a dog.





	Still Good

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm back! 
> 
> This is the final part of Revali's trilogy, meaning that we just have Mipha's prequel and interlude, the closer, and the epilogue to go! We're so close! 
> 
> This fic takes place two years and four months after Ganon falls. Ellie is one year and three months old. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Sunlight glinted off the snow, bursting into rainbow crystals that dazzled and danced as Revali walked down the path, Zelda by his side and Ellie in his arms. The little tot had never seen snow before that she was old enough to remember, and her green eyes sparkled with delight at mountains around them.

 

“You don’t get this back home, do you sweetling?” Zelda cooed to her daughter. “Isn’t it nice that you have Uncle Revali to show you?” Ellie responded with a raspberry and Zelda sighed. “I cannot believe Riju taught you that.”

 

“She probably would’ve learned it eventually,” Revali said. “Molly had this clacking thing she did with her beak that drove my sister crazy. She was furious when she learned I’d showed her how.”

 

“If you teach her that,” Zelda said, waggling a threatening finger at him, “I will set Moose on you and you will never know peace.” As if to confirm her statement, the massive dog let out a low _boof_.

 

“Nonsense, she isn’t a Rito,” Revali said dismissively. “She can’t clack.”

 

“She would figure out a way,” the former princess grumbled. “You wouldn’t believe what she picked up from Purah.”

 

“I’m not sure I want to.”

 

Link and Zelda had come on business, but baby germs had beaten Hylia’s Champion into the ground the moment he’d arrived and forced him into bed. It was Revali who had suggested the distraction of the flight range – safe and enclosed with enough snow nearby for Ellie to play in.

 

Moose galloped ahead and flopped onto his back, tongue hanging dopily out the side of his mouth. With a joyous wiggle, he made the dog version of a snow angel before scrambling to his feet and returning to Zelda.

 

“You are such a silly thing!” she laughed. “Still such a puppy.”

 

“I thought he was over a year old already,” Revali said.

 

“He is.” She wrapped an arm around the dog’s neck, barely needing to bend due to his size. “He’s just very playful.”

 

Ellie patted his neck, her sign that she wanted attention. “What is it, ladybug?” he asked, gently bumping her nose with his beak.

 

“Don!”

 

“You want down?”

 

“Don! Don!”

 

Revali looked nervously at Zelda for approval. “Can I put her down?”

 

“Just hold her hand,” she said. “Ellie’s not the steadiest on her feet yet.”

 

“Okay, down you get!” He made a show of tossing her before settling her in the snow, prompting a fit of infectious giggling that could make a talus laugh. “What do you think?”

 

Ellie stomped on the snow with one foot, testing it. She looked up at her mother, confused. “Gas?”

 

“No, not grass. Grass is green,” Zelda said. “This is snow. Can you say ‘snow’?”

 

“No.”

 

“Is…is that an attempt or a refusal?” Revali asked, uncertain.

 

“Take your best guess,” Zelda said. “Ellie, say ‘snow’ for mama!”

 

“No!” Ellie discovered she could kick at the snow, which was powdery enough to make a cloud in front of her. She squealed in delight. “No! Mama, no, no!”

 

“She’s trying to say it,” Zelda said, “I just think that the ‘s-n’ part is a little much for her right now.”

 

They managed to coax her onward, promising more snow when they got to the flight range. Progress, of course, was slow, but seeing the little girl rediscover the fluffy white stuff every three feet or so was well worth the trip. It was mid-morning when they finally reached their destination.

 

“Ellie, come here!” Revali led her to a bank of snow and scooped out a small pile, showing it to her. “I can squish it like this, see?” He formed it into a snowball and held it out for her inspection. “This is a snowball. You can throw them at your papa when he gets better.”

 

“Watch it, Revali.”

 

“In a fun and loving way.”

 

“I mean it.”

 

Ellie accepted the snowball and crushed it in her tiny gloves. “Uh oh!” she exclaimed, holding up her gloves for Revali to inspect. “No bye-bye.”

 

“Yes, the snow went bye-bye. We can make more, though,” Revali said. He scooped another small pile off of the snowbank, then waited for her to copy him. “Good. Now we go squish, squish, squish, and now we have a snowball!”

 

“Noball,” Ellie whispered, and Zelda clapped.

 

“Good girl, Ellie! Snowball!”

 

“Noball!” She tried to clap too, but ended up crushing her lopsided snowball. “Uh oh!”

 

They made snowballs until lunch, when Zelda waved them into the shelter for sandwiches.

 

“You’re so good with her,” Zelda told Revali as the little girl made an erratic freedom run around the room, Moose hot on her heels.

 

“…She reminds me a lot of Molly,” he admitted quietly. “I was around her a lot at this age. I wish I hadn’t been such an a- uh, so rude. In the end.”

 

She smiled. “Yes, you were a bit difficult, back in the day.”

 

“I’m sorry for the things I said about you,” he said, “both of you. I was arrogant and you didn’t deserve any of it.”

 

“We were all too young,” Zelda said, and suddenly Revali could see the centuries in her eyes, deep and aching and terrible in their darkness. “But it couldn’t have happened any other way.” She sighed and the look was gone, back to her normal sweet green. “I thought Link already told you he was over it.”

 

“He did, but since when do I listen to him?” They both chuckled.

 

Ellie came to a stop in front of Zelda. “Mama!” she whined. “Ousside!”

 

“You want to go back in the snow?” Zelda asked.

 

“No!”

 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” She fetched Ellie’s coat, fighting the fidgeting toddler into it with patience that showed practice. “You can go ahead and take her out while I get my coat on,” she said, “she’ll just get grumpier if we make her wait. With luck, she’ll fall asleep on the walk back.”

 

“I know how to wear out a kid,” Revali said. He took Ellie’s tiny hand. “Come on, ladybug, let’s go!” She all but dragged him out the door as her mother laughed behind them.

 

Ellie led him back to the snowbank, but stopped a few feet away and sat on her butt on the path. He sat down next to her, eternally grateful for the insulation his feathers provided, while the girl’s loyal mutt plopped himself down on her other side. After patting and poking the snow, the toddler seemed to judge it a good spot to draw pictures and began tracing squiggles in the snow with her finger. Content to watch, Revali leaned back and enjoyed the cool breeze that seemed unique to the flight range. He hadn’t been there often, busy with the tasks given to him by the Elder, but in all honesty he couldn’t complain. Being busy stopped him from thinking about the century-long gap between him and the people he’d failed.

 

A quiet _click_ from behind him made him turn, only to find Zelda with the Sheikah slate out, a sheepish look on her face. “You two looked so cute,” she said.

 

“Excuse you, I’m a Rito warrior!” Revali said, his voice full of teasing bravado. “I’m _adorable_.”

 

Zelda giggled, then raised the slate again. “Ellie!” she called. “Ellie, look at Mama!”

 

Ellie whipped around, but at the cost of her balance. She landed face-first in the snow just as the camera sounded, then lifted herself up while screaming. Revali couldn’t contain his laughter.

 

“I think we’re done here for today,” Zelda said as she scooped up her daughter, picking the snow out of her wild hair. “Do you want a nap, honey?”

 

“I would love one,” Revali replied.

 

“I was talking to Elliana.”

 

He just shrugged. “I’m still going to take a nap.”

 

“I’m not tucking you in.”

 

“You wound me, Princess!”

 

_“Revali.”_

**Author's Note:**

>  **Writing Notes:**  
>  1) My grandmother taught me to make raspberries when I was very small, which, of course, meant that I did them _constantly_.  
> 2) Link is out of commission for this because I wanted this to be wholesome and whenever he and Revali are in the same room, it turns into a sass-fest.   
> 3) It's been a while since I posted the other two parts of Revali's trilogy so, as a refresher, he had a little niece named Molly that he adored, but the village she lived in with her parents was destroyed when the Calamity occurred. The revelation of their loss once he was revived dragged Revali into trying to be a nicer person, as he pushed his sister, and by association his niece, away once their parents died.   
> 4) One of my friends has a daughter around this age, so I used her speech patterns for Ellie.   
> 5) While the others were either dead or in suspended animation for the century between the rise and fall of the Calamity, Zelda was up and functional the entire time. She's twenty-one here, but she's a very _old_ twenty-one.   
> 6) "Wow Rina, that's really cute with her falling face-first into the snow, how'd you get that idea?" ...because the first time I went out in the snow, at the same age as little Ellie here, the first thing I did was walk to the edge of the driveway and plummet face-first into a snowbank. I've always been very graceful. 
> 
> I'm rina-san28 on Tumblr! Come say hello!


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